Exclusive: Trump Revives Mexico City Policy, Rescinds Biden Abortion Initiatives

The latest moves by Trump are an attempt to rescind four years of former President Biden’s abortion initiatives and reinstate the status quo from before Biden took office, a White House official said.

Biden rescinded the Mexico City Policy, and while he never successfully overturned the Hyde Amendment, his administration took numerous steps at the federal level to expand abortion access after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.

Introduced during the Reagan administration, the Mexico City Policy, or “global gag rule” as it is known by its critics, has bounced back and forth on the federal registrar. Every Democratic president has rescinded the policy, only for every Republican president to subsequently reinstate it. The new president did not break from this pattern.

A readout of the Trump order states that the president will reinstate the policy, as he did previously in 2017, ensuring “that no U.S. taxpayer money supports foreign organizations that perform or actively promote abortion in other nations.” It also extends the policy to apply to “global health assistance,” as the president had ordered in 2020 during his previous term.

After the Supreme Court returned the issue to the states, Biden vowed to codify Roe if voters would give Democrats control of Congress and return him to the White House. The former president pledged that, in the interim, his administration would use “all of its appropriate lawful powers” to preserve access to abortion in states where it remains legal.

And the Biden administration developed a host of new policies toward that end. The Defense Department implemented a policy to reimburse transportation costs for service members and their dependents traveling across state lines for abortion. A Biden spokesman told RCP the policy was critical to military readiness. The Department of Veterans Affairs introduced a rule allowing VA hospitals to provide access to abortion counseling and, in some cases, to perform abortions for service members and their beneficiaries. And the Health and Human Services Department, amidst a historic surge at the border, issued a policy requiring that pregnant illegal immigrants who were minors and unaccompanied by a parent be given transportation for an abortion.

The Trump administration cited each of those Biden policies as examples of “federal overreach,” identified them for rescission, and in a readout of the order, stated that going forward, “taxpayer dollars will no longer force violations of faith and conscience or impede the ability of states to determine life policies through a vote of the people.”

The Trump administration alleges that Biden violated the Hyde Amendment by embedding federal funding of abortion within government programs. To rectify that, the new Trump executive order rescinds two Biden executive actions, one that imposed a whole-of-government effort to expand access to abortion and another that categorized abortion as “healthcare.”

The Supreme Court returned the issue to the state level in their decision to overturn Roe, a fact that the readout noted explicitly. Another stated fact: “Three of the justices deciding the case were appointed by President Trump.” It was this track record that earned Trump the enduring adoration of social conservatives and the oft-repeated distinction of being “the most pro-life president ever.”

On the campaign trail, however, Trump frustrated some of those voters by refusing to support a national abortion ban, which would require legislation, instead arguing that the issue should be left to the states to decide. And once back in office, the issue was initially absent from his blizzard of executive actions, other than pardons he issued for 23 anti-abortion protestors who were convicted by the Biden Department of Justice for illegally blocking an abortion clinic.

Earlier in the week, 144 Republican members of Congress, including a majority of the GOP Senate conference, penned an open letter to the president saying that they look forward “to the reinstatement of Trump policies on life in the first days of your second term.” They did not have to wait long.

The president timed the release of his executive actions to coincide with the annual March for Life on Friday when some of his most ardent supporters rallied on the National Mall. Vice President J.D. Vance addressed the march in person, while Trump recorded a video message Thursday to be played at the Friday rally. His latest executive action will likely delight many of those supporters.

“President Trump’s immediate action to promote respect for all human life, including vulnerable unborn children abroad, as well as conscience rights, sends a strong signal about his administration’s pro-life priorities,” Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the anti-abortion advocacy group SBA Pro-Life America, said when Trump previously reinstated the Mexico City Policy.

“This will cause clinic closures around the world – resulting in more unintended pregnancy and unsafe abortion, not less,” the late Cecile Richards, then president of Planned Parenthood, said at the time, arguing that by reinstating the Mexico City Policy, Trump had “undermined years of efforts to improve women’s health.”

Abortion will remain controversial even as the debate is relegated to the states. After the issue buoyed Democrats in the previous midterms, Biden hoped a wave of pro-abortion voters could deliver him the White House. It became a cornerstone of his, and later former Vice President Kamala Harris’, doomed campaign. But in the end, the former president, who often referred to abortion as “a fundamental right,” did not even mention the issue during his farewell address.